Raritan River Sunfish

[ALK11]

Here is my latest video, an ultralight sunfish fishing trip on the Raritan River. It's from the summer, but I just got around to releasing it. Watching it sure makes me miss those warmer days when wading the river is a nice way to cool off. Didn't catch any real monsters, but when ultralight fishing for sunfish, that's not what it's about. I did manage some beautifully colored redbreast sunfish. I absolutely love the teal colors on these fish. Hope you like it.

https://youtu.be/S86ZNAkNmWs

[DanH]

Nice report.

[bulletbob]

Nice video..Sunnies are still one of my favorites.
If I could consistently catch big ones like they do down south, thats probably all I would fish for in fresh water.. They are great to eat, fight harder than any other panfish, actually fight as well or better than some "game fish" pound for pound... Like other fish, they seem to fight better when taken from streams than from lakes.. That killie would be a fluke magnet a few miles downstream from where you were fishing!

[AndyS]

Where do all those fish go in the winter ?

[ALK11]

Originally Posted by bulletbob

Nice video..Sunnies are still one of my favorites.
If I could consistently catch big ones like they do down south, thats probably all I would fish for in fresh water.. They are great to eat, fight harder than any other panfish, actually fight as well or better than some "game fish" pound for pound... Like other fish, they seem to fight better when taken from streams than from lakes.. That killie would be a fluke magnet a few miles downstream from where you were fishing!

I now live in Florida. In the spring and summer you can regularly catch 8-10 inchers from shore on almost every cast if you're in the right spot. Not to mention we have so many non-native cichlids here who grow slightly bigger than sunfish and fight 5x as hard pound for pound. Ultralight fishing down here is great.

Originally Posted by AndyS

Where do all those fish go in the winter ?

Excellent question. I really don't do freshwater fishing in the winter time as I've never had much success. I suppose they all stack up together in some deeper holes and rarely eat.

[thmyorke1]

sunfish i found buried in the mud within the tires during early march cleanups when the water was still cold. (it may have been late fall, i remember wearing waders)

I think in the shallow river setting, they go full shutdown since they cant find much spots to survive. I tried fishing in the slowest and deepest parts of the raritan in the cold but dont get much success.

Whatever they do, they clearly come back every spring/summer in mass and dont have any problem surviving winter.

I think they utilize the bottom and make it out of the winter without moving much of a muscle. Likely different from lake sunfish